Practicing Small-town Medicine

July 30, 1989|By STEVE LINTHWAITE Book Reviewer

Dr. Beach Conger migrated west after graduating in 1967 from a prestigious eastern medical school. He left the anti-war movement and ban-the-bomb groupies to make his bones as an internist in a big California hospital. But Conger yearned to be free and live the simple life of a country doctor.

So a decade later, Conger moved his family to a small Vermont town and set up practice. What Dr. Conger found was the practice of medicine quite unlike that experienced in California.

The good doctor's mother advised him to keep a diary for reference when publishing his memoirs someday, but Conger decided no one would likely be interested in his memories and settled on "Bag Balm & Duct Tape." It's a funny book and worth your time especially if you are in any health field.

On doctors' handwriting: "I try to write my instructions in such a way as to give them not one but several possible interpretations."

On nurses: "Nurses must learn everything a doctor learns, so that whenever a situation arises that might develop into a mistake on the part of the doctor if the nurse did what the doctor ordered instead of what he meant to do, the nurse can distinguish the latter from the former and prevent the mistake from occurring."

Conger's first attempt at a book has produced a humorous, tongue-in-cheek shot at the crusty institution of medicine, doctors, nurses, pill salesmen, pharmaceutical companies, small-town life, patients, chiropractors and of course, himself as well. Enjoy.